Talk:Agriculture in Australia

Sugar, Sugar, baby

I want to add a thing on sugar, but I know little botanical/horticultural classification. (Monocot, Dicot, Gymnosperm & Angio is about as far as I go). So i don't know whether sugar industry should be a separate heading (probably should be anyway its big enough) or mentioned in Horticulture.

Also pineapples, Where would they go?--ZayZayEM 05:12, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sugar falls under crops in the stats, technically sugar is a grass (monocot) so a subsection in crops would be a good place for sugar. Pineapples are definatley a horticultural crop --nixie 05:23, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Page missing a critical component of agriculture

There's not a word here on beekeeping, although I know Australia has at least one world-renouned expert on pollination management. A number of crops are not possible without contract pollination. I understand there is also a lot of research on the use of native bees for managed pollination. Broke. Ain't got no money, dont know where to go. Just sittin' staring at the stereo. I think we better turn it UP,turn it UP ,turn it UP someone supply the missing info? Pollinator 00:51, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

Sheep station/Cattle station

There we have the great iconic landuse of rangelands and dammed if I can see anything about it in this art? If nobody replies on this one will try to insert somewhere.User:SatuSuro 08:39, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

• I'm not sure, but I think there is a distinction between agricultural land (i.e land that supports plants that will be harvested) and

pastoral land (i.e. land that supports plants that will be grazed by stock). Sheep / cattle stations are indeed an iconic Australian landuse, and there's a lot to say about them. I wonder if it wouldn't be best said in a separate article; perhaps Pastoralism in Australia. That would give me a better place to link "Pastoralist" to ;-) User:Hesperian 12:24, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

It's all agriculture, and thus some comment on the big cattle stations belongs here. --Robert Merkel 23:40, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, very important to have some mention of cattle and sheep stations here, but that does not preclude a separate rangeland/pastoralism in australia article - like x% of australian landmass is taken up by them, and this is after all an encyc.User:SatuSuro 01:55, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries would see them all as being Agriculture. Farms would exclude enterprises where the only activity is grazing for meat &/or wool - but dairies in Australia are regarded as being farms, as are poultry enterprises. As this article is not Farming in Australia there is no reason to keep any of it out, but if it gets too big it should go to a seperate article.Garrie 02:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Wool is missing

The section Major agricultural products does not list wool in the top ten. This does not appear consistent with ABARE livestock (PDF). --Scott Davis ^Talk 05:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The most recent stats are here if someone wants to update it.--Peta 06:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Updated, fruit and nuts and vegitables were also missing.Charles Esson 20:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Soap box

I am reverting animal welfare back to pre Russel dyer. It's an Encyclopedia not a soap box. Removing the bit about it not being as emotive as European Union. That is a Judgement that I see hard to justify for an encyclopedia and a red rag to a bull if someone is emotiive on the issue. Charles Esson 20:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC).

Animal welfare is important but so are many other issues, it belongs in a section on it's own. Needs to be a paragraph on hens, that has been a constant battle and a interesting one as it is forcing change in industry practice. I tried to create a balanced view and put it in one section. Charles Esson 20:23, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Rapeseed

im cotemplating should we change rape seed to canola ive worked on may farms and ive been heavily involved in the industry for for more then 10 years and ive always heard it called canola i look foward to everyones feedback cheers Bnsbeaver —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bnsbeaver (talk • contribs) 09:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Canola are cultivars of rapeweed that contain lower levels of glucosinates; it really should be changed to canola because that is what is farmed.Charles Esson 21:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

yeah but it's not very PC to call it rapeseed... they started calling it canola (in Australia) (weather correct or not!) back in the 1980's... WP:NAME and WP:NC(CN) would suggest, using what it is called by most people - which is canola. (when was the last time you saw "rape seed oil" or "rape seed margarine" in your supermarket? maybe you did at a stock food place but most people haven't)Garrie 05:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems that there is some confustion about my first statement, I wanted to change the word from Rapeseed to Canola, becouse when I wrote the statement the article said rapeseed to which I change to canola about 14 days after i brought this up becouse i had no objections. Cheers Bnsbeaver 06:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Referencing

For this article to move toward FA-quality the referencing needs to be in-line citations not general statements all statistics from these two sites....

If you are able to go back and make use of <ref></ref> statements for the edits you made that would probably be enough to get this article to A-class. Use of tags for inline citeation is discussed at WP:CITE.

(yes it's a hobby horse of mine).

BTW: Mulesing is the current Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight

Garrie 02:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Land Clearing

that section is terribly POV anti-green. Given the strength of the statments made it is almost worth removing unless someone can provide references.Garrie 03:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Specifically: as it stands the section totally disregards the fact that the clearing of native grassland, to make way for annual crops, is seen as a significant factor in the widespread problem of dryland salinity. (that's assuming that what it is saying, is actually correct - as it is unsourced, who knows?) Garrie 03:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest removing or modifying it -- the clearing of land exposing bare soil to rain is the main culprit of dryland salinity. I am not sure where these statements come from but they are clearly subjective in nature.BroMonque 18:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Indigenous Australians practiced agriculture?

I just removed this edit criticizing the claim that indigenous Australian's were hunter-gatherers who did not practice agriculture as it's not appropriate to have fact checking annotation within the article. I moved it here so that more knowledgeable editors could address whether or not the article needs changing. Thanks -- Siobhan Hansa 18:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Ticks

As in the insects... I understand - but don't know for sure and definately can't reference - that pretty much, people farm sheep as far north as they can without running into extreme problems with ticks - beyond which they stick to Bos Indicus type cattle.

Am I right? If so - should there be something about the effect of ticks on type of enterprise? Or should this be in Sheep station?Garrie 04:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

export figures

g'day, in the german wikipedia a question arose about the claim, that 80% of australian agricultural products are exported... is this figure still valid? are there any sources? thanks, --82.83.30.141 14:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC) yey the end

WP Aus B-class assessment

It remains a B class but there are large numbers of unsourced stats, there some EL withi the article text which should be converted to references. Gnangarra 12:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The use of the word "said"

Genetic Modification section uses the word "said" quite a lot. Can you try to change some of it into other words with similar meanings to seem less repetitive?--Ababcdc1 (talk) 08:38, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

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I have just modified 6 external links on Agriculture in Australia. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110822032313/http://www.anra.gov.au/topics/agriculture/beef/index.html to http://www.anra.gov.au/topics/agriculture/beef/index.html
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Genetic modification

I read the "Genetic modification" section that has an overkill on the use of the word "said" and this was mentioned above. There is also an overuse of pronouns and quotes without quotations: "some grain producers" (peacock term), "They argue" (these vague grain producers), "Producers have also said", "He said the "amazing" results" (from previous sentence "Bignell told farmers they should not use GM"), "He said that "Instead of using...", "Bignell said the trials had strengthened...", "...which he said gave the state's produce a "market edge".", and "Bignell also said he believed results...".

To me everything from "Producers have also said their GM-free grain is not translating to higher profits." needs to be rewritten or deleted. Otr500 (talk) 14:21, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Organic emphasis

Organic farming represents about 3% of agricultural output in Australia. Inasmuch, there is too much emphasis on it in this article, including multiple sentences in the lede, maps and diagrams near the top of the piece, and mostly relying on a single source. Additionally, the numbers given for the hectares of organic farmland exceed the total hectares of cropland in Australia (due to including much open cattle grazing land as organic.) I'm going to reorganise the piece so that references to organic farming are kept to a small section in keeping with its overall significance. Ordinary Person (talk) 10:57, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Should the GM section be moved there also? I think it's a good section but primarily useful as it relates to organic produce. 20WattSphere (talk) 14:43, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

The categorisation of the grazing land as organic appears to be common: [1][2] — Invasive Spices (talk) 9 October 2022 (UTC)

To-do list

I'm working on this page since it was the first listed under WikiProject Australia that was C-rated but Top priority. Here's a bit of a to-do list that I think would be helpful. Feel free to action any of these or let me know if you have disagreements or ideas

• combine (and also... update) Production and Major Agricultural Products
• include politically topical issues like sustainable fishing (e.g. TasSal controversy) and live exports (currently moving towards a ban)
• several topics under specific commodity headings could be moved to the Issues section. e.g. the live exports and wool animal welfare issues.
• need some more information about the wool industry
• there's really no mention of things like mental health concerns for farmers and economic hardship. Or labor shortages of 2020 onwards (visa issues could be discussed...)
• water security issues e.g. the Murray Darling basin
• history and cultural context, maybe talk about some Aus folk songs
• Indigenous issues regarding Euro ag e.g. the Bathurst War.
• invasive species and pests - national biosecurity management
• find a better water drainage division graphic (that is not copyright)
• intro - first para needs subjective statements clarified and encylopedia-ified. add some more high level exposition on industry and its history, products and people. zoning information can go in a separate section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 20WattSphere (talk • contribs) 12:33, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I had a look at the highest class articles as part of WikiProject Agriculture, for some inspiration. Apparently the highest are

• A-class: Agriculture in Wales
• B-class: Agriculture in the United Kingdom

I also think Agriculture in Ireland looks great, even though it's C class.

20WattSphere (talk) 06:35, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I might take a break from this page for a while just to make sure everyone can catch up with changes I've made (there's been quite a few) and edit stuff. I'll come back to it some day and try to get it to the best it can be. 20WattSphere (talk) 13:53, 19 July 2023 (UTC)